National HIV Testing Week: Hit Fringe show First Time ends SHOUT Festival 2019

News

Posted on 21 Nov 2019

Edinburgh Fringe star Nathaniel Hall rounds off SHOUT Festival 2019 tonight and tomorrow with his hit show, First Time - ‘a funny and frank autobiographical solo show about staying positive in a negative world’.

Nathaniel contracted HIV during his first ever sexual encounter, aged 16.

“At a time when I was trying to make sense of my sexuality,” recalls Nathaniel, “I was getting this message that gay men just get Aids and die anyway, so what was the point. So when I met Sam (not his real name), who was the first openly gay person who gave me attention, it was completely intoxicating. All of a sudden there was this rare, almost exotic creature - something I knew inside my head that I was myself, or wanted to be - giving me attention. Plus, he was older. So he was leading the way and guiding me into this world of being gay.

“The show is very funny. I think there’s humour hidden in even the darkest places, and you’re never too far from a laugh in First Time. It also has fabulous storytelling, some bad drag, audience participation and moments of quiet reflection, but it ends in a really hopeful place.

"No one will go away feeling too emotionally drained afterwards, because it’s really important to me that my audience has a space in which to feel positive about the future.”

Commenting on First Time, SHOUT says: Although technically SHOUT Festival finished on the 17th, we couldn’t let Nathaniel Hall’s hilarious and important show pass us by. He took the Edinburgh Fringe by storm this summer, and now he’s coming to Birmingham.

Coinciding with National HIV Testing Week, Friday’s performance will include a post-show discussion with Dr David White from the Birmingham Heartlands HIV Service.

First Time shows at the Old Joint Stock Theatre in Birmingham on Thursday 21 & Friday 22 November.

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